


Love, Selfish Love

by itakethewords (BluntBetty)



Series: All Over You, Not Over You [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Break Up, Cheating, Communication Failure, Divorce, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Infidelity, Infidelity, M/M, Marriage, Regret, Unhappy Ending, Viktor making generally bad choices, references to semi-public sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 06:36:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14764482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BluntBetty/pseuds/itakethewords
Summary: Despite it being their third wedding anniversary, he didn’t see him smiling much. His husband looked contemplative, lost, anything but glad they were here with friends. It rankled him a little, to see him not willing to celebrate their marriage. He was having a great time, the champagne and wine was flowing freely with the food, there was a mound of presents. Why was he so unhappy?Companion toLove, Enough.





	Love, Selfish Love

**Author's Note:**

> Those of you who read the companion work _Love, Enough_ , you are the reason why this one exists. You all blew my mind with your reactions and almost all of you begged for more. Specifically, Viktor's side. So here you are!
> 
> Those who haven't read _Love, Enough_ , you probably should, but you don't have to read them in order. I can 95% guarantee you'll like this more if you do, though. Head over to my list of works and read it!
> 
> Well, in case you're one of those people who don't know how to read tags or have disabled seeing them in your settings, you're in for a ride. This isn't a happy ending.
> 
> That said, enjoy!

Once, in a hotel room in Barcelona, he’d called him selfish. There were other times, other instances where he’d called him selfish. Called him worse things. Fights, frustrations. Sometimes they were true, others it was his own anger getting the better of his tongue and lips. He was selfish, but really, it was usually out of love. Himself? He was just plain old selfish.

He’d been called self-centered.

Self-indulgent, callous.

He was all of those things and more.

When he found something good, he clung to it like a child at their mother’s legs, gave it his full attention to where little around him could break his concentration.

Selfish.

Greedy.

Needy for attention.

Life was busy, their lives were so busy. He’d long since retired after skating a season. But he’d retired with moderate success, content with silvers and a smattering of golds that last go around the ice to applause aimed at him. Their attention focused on his golden blades, the silver around his neck. His time became split not on his own skates and his fiance’s, but instead his husband come the next season and the two students he’d acquired from his own former coach.

Life was a whirlwind, something he should have been readily prepared for given his status in the sport but he found he lacked. He lacked the ability to juggle it all, despite wanting it all. Honeymoons weren’t meant to last forever, no matter how hard he wished. No matter how many times he’d put his foot in his mouth and eat crow. And those times he was in the right, when he knew better and just had to point it out… He knew better, but he was selfish. He wanted the title with the crown.

The longer he mentored and coached, the more students he took on until he had quite the full house. He was selfish, he wanted his golden touch on all the skaters. He wanted them all to smile with pride, saying they were coached by _him._ To say they learned their skills from him. Early mornings, late nights. Sleeping late on his day off. Meetings with the ISU and more than enough cold dinners from the fridge or picked up from convenience stores.

It wasn’t until he took himself to hand in the shower one morning, listening to his husband through the open door talk to one of their dogs in a sing-song voice, that he realized they hadn’t made time for one another. Weeks? A month? More? Just how long had it been since he’d felt the warmth of his bare skin, traded hot breaths climbing to their peaks, stared tenderly into one another’s eyes afterwords, blushing at each other’s whispers. He wanted that again, wanted it now. Making a gamble, he abandoned his shower, trailing water from the bathroom to the bedroom where the figure of his desire stood, reaching for something at the top of their closet.

Back to chest, hands on waist, a trail of lips on his neck and jaw and another pair of plush opening in surprise. There was certainly surprise, but his selfish request was met with dazed acceptance and soon he hadn’t been the only one eager. They’d gone on their first date in months; dinner, dancing to a jazzy tune. A quick text to their ice tiger to look after the dogs and they were in a hotel suite. The same one he took him to for their first anniversary. He was selfish enough to grease palms and happily accept the enthusiastic mouth and hands presented to him that night before chasing more pleasures in such a teasing body.

Dates became rarer after that. He was busy, a busy man with a demanding schedule that selfishly kept him on the ice or next to it. His lungs were made of ice more so than ever, his body reflecting that cold and enticing chill that he lived for.

They could go out but inevitably, they would argue. Their tongues becoming weapons in wars of words. The next day they’d be in gossip rags and on social media. People predicting when they were breaking up, who would leave first, who the other woman or man was. He never really let that stuff get to him. But oh, in the apartment, there were hunched shoulders, stained pillowcases, and a doggie pile on the couch with abandoned empty mugs and tissues on the table.

Far inside, deep, he selfishly thought himself disgusted at they way he’d take it all to heart. It felt like he believed them. That _he_ was selfish for not coming to him for comfort or affirmation.

The fact that he spent fourteen hours a day at the rink or the sports complex itself had nothing to do with it. They shared ice for four of those hours.

When they fought at the park, he abandoned a set of watery eyes and two tucked tails and took a cab to the rink. The ice time today was for hockey but he hadn’t cared in the slightest. He needed the bite and sting of cold, the sound of blades cutting on the winter surface. These are what calmed him the most when the sound of a soothing heartbeat in a warm chest couldn’t.

He was selfish. He said so.

He had to be reminded that they didn’t have time for each other, the dogs. A child was impossible right now.

He coached five students officially between juniors and seniors and mentored two smalls just starting out. His own husband was constantly in international competitions and the two of them traveled too often.

There wasn’t time.

There wasn’t enough attention.

It wasn’t the right time.

They were not ready for children.

One of them would have to retire. Who was going to ask who to retire this time?

But really, when?

When was the right time?

He was thirty-three, he was almost twenty-nine.

They weren’t old, but they were no longer young. He wasn’t young anymore.

The rink was surprisingly silent when he came to the boards. The zamboni hadn’t been run yet, the ice littered with patterns and slices. So taking advantage, he laced on his skates, leaving his guards at the entrance, and let his body take over. The smooth glide despite not yet being fresh. The exertion of his muscles pushing him in spins and a few triples. He only did quads now when he was teaching them. He was old.

He tried doing _Stammi Vicino_. Their duetto. It hurt. Not his knees or hips. His heart hurt because it could feel how stiff he was.

They were out of sorts.

There was a commotion at the wall, a person calling out, smirking as he skated forward.

Lightening fast for a hockey player, a center who was all smiles and long blond hair for the camera at SKA Saint Petersburg’s conferences. Always next to their captains, the three of them were the stars for the biggest and brightest the KHL had to offer and on the Gazprom books.

Was it selfish he knew those three well enough? They all shared ice, represented Russia.

More selfish than forgetting he’d left his husband and two wiggling poodle puppies in a park across town from their apartment?

It didn’t cross his mind until after he’d gotten home that night, breath heavy with alcohol and smile from having a conversation with someone about random things on his lips. When he came home to no lights on, no leftovers waiting. The dogs unseen, and the bedroom door locked. A wall of wood and brass stood between him and his family and he had little thought for it, stumbling to the guest room, only to find that door locked too.

He’d been generously left his pillow and the fleece blanket from the hall closet on the couch.

It was selfish of him, absolutely, to find friendship in someone else. To go to someone and complain that he didn’t have time for his husband, that his husband didn’t have time for him. Selfish to tell another man his complaints on his marriage. To be generous in telling about how they hadn’t had sex in two months, that they hadn’t cuddled in six weeks, that they hadn’t even pecked in almost a month. He poured his free time into the man who admired the athleticism of figure skating but admitted he didn’t understand the appeal of grace, performance. He blanked on the question of musicality in movement.

But he was pretty.

Pretty young.

Twenty one, fair and flirty. Newer to the complex and SRA Saint Petersburg than most of his team. He wasn’t around often enough to be enamored with his husband, to be a close friend like the others. He was someone who didn’t know he was selfish.

They were in the showers when he was first kissed. He stepped back, surprised with wide eyes.

There was just a soft, crooked smile and a question in his brown eyes.

They talked after. The bench in the locker room was uncomfortable the whole conversation but time rushed past them until the janitor threw them out after yelling in surprise that they were still there.

He went home with the ghost of foreign lips on his. They were warm.

They’d pressed close, dragging away, only parting from his when he’d broken contact.

He didn’t think of the skin that had pressed against his arm when he’d leaned in. He didn’t think of the heat of the water and steam, the cold of tiles surrounding them.

He didn’t think of how he hadn’t been angry.

Instead, he greeted the three waiting for him, heated up leftover rice and salmon and sat on the couch, making the most casual conversation with his husband on opposite ends of the couch. He almost threw up at the thought of trying to cuddle with him.

The lack of guilt made him sick. He made himself sick.

Selfishly, he kissed back a week later.

The locker room empty save himself after seeing out his husband and their blond friend and rinkmate. The hockey players were trickling into the complex for their ice time and he had only been half surprised to be dragged into the laundry area and kissed quickly. Unthinking, he took for himself the lips presented to him, hungry for more contact.

Contact. Touch. He was starved for it. The expanse of sheets at home, the miles of microfiber on the sofa left him starved and cold and this was the first offered affection he’d been gifted in so long. He found himself making out in a locker room like a teenager again and he half expected his own coach to barrel in, yelling about propriety and priorities and how selfish he was being, catering to his hormones instead of his career.

He missed the dogs’ birthday when he’d been talked into the movies by his beau. Too busy with hands full of spun gold and his cock eagerly sucked down.

He didn’t remember until he got to the empty apartment, the remnants of doggie cake on the table and the new toys they’d picked out together in the hallway. When they’d returned from what looked to be a long walk, he gave a peck on a sullen man’s cheek and was able to get a hug out of him. They slept next to one another.

He felt like he’d regressed, gone back to being a teen again. Like he was finishing his teen and early twenties after they’d been shelved. Trysts, making out in hallways before someone came by, quick fucks in closets and hands and mouths in cars, trains, and bathrooms. Creating excuses for narrowed green eyes that glared at him when he told his husband he had a meeting after practice and they couldn’t go out. Ignoring the shaking of his old coach’s head when he is late to their dinner with his ex wife and his own spouse.

He was rebelling.

He knew it was asinine. He was running from one problem and into another.

But he was running where there were smiles and willing hands and arms.

He was where he could lift a star hockey player onto the boards and fuck him hard and fast, leaving his mark on his back and bruises on his hips.

Despite it being their third wedding anniversary, he didn’t see him smiling much. His husband looked contemplative, lost, anything but glad they were here with friends. It rankled him a little, to see him not willing to celebrate their marriage. He was having a great time, the champagne and wine was flowing freely with the food, there was a mound of presents. Why was he so unhappy?

When he went back to talk to the chef about the next course of food, his lover met him in the hall, kissed him hard, brought his hand to his crotch and made sure he knew how hard he was.

The only thing his lust-hazed mind could think to do, the most logical choice, was to suck him off.

It wouldn’t do for anything to see a growing bulge in either of their pants. The suits were a pair he’d bought from Brioni two weeks before custom, he refused to let them get stained.

After, it didn’t occur to him that he didn’t see his other half the rest of the evening until they piled into the car to leave.

He was a selfish bastard. He was comfortable with that title as he brought his other man into their home, into their bed. As he ignored the barks and whines of their dogs in favor of shower sex and multiple rounds on the mattress where he’d once whispered his love for his husband for life.

He was selfish enough to forget to change the sheets.

To not realize the dogs were too quiet.

He was oblivious and self-centered to realize he was alone in his own apartment until ice time came and his oldest student didn’t show up. The clock ticked away and no skater. When the overlap time came for his ice tiger came, the blond was five minutes late and didn’t say a word to him. Didn’t make eye contact. Barely listened to his orders and suggestions. And when their time was over, when his student left him alone, he only half mused on his odd but not completely off behavior.

The apartment was cold when he came home. The dogs were not there. He wasn’t there.

Not after he showered. Not after he cooked dinner for two, thinking he could surprise him. Not as he did his night routine and settled into the sheets.

The sheets that were still soiled.

The middle of the night was cold. Colder than even the months he thought his marriage had gone stale. He realized several things when he rolled over and smelled sweat and come on his husband’s pillow.

Morning was around the corner and he sat in bed, contemplating.

Several days passed and he found himself home, alone.

He refused to touch his hockey player and the man only shrugged his shoulders, uncaring if they were permanent or casual. He was young, he said. He was up for whatever.

He came home early one day, just after lunch.

He had a feeling.

He didn’t care if he was being selfish towards his students. They could practice together or take the day off.

He had a feeling.

HIs gut roiled. His skin crawled.

His apartment looked okay.

Not okay, still missing his dogs. His husband.

It was subtle. The change. Small gaps in the closets, in the dresser drawers. The bathroom was missing a toothbrush. All of the dogs’ things were gone and their medal cabinet had naked spaces. They screamed at him in accusation.

The accusation that he was so self-absorbed that he didn’t realize in the last four years, his life and love had not truly felt comfortable enough to carve himself space in his husband’s home. So self-centered that he hadn’t realized why, in the last couple months, they’d barely spoken, let alone touched. When was the last time they’d shared a meal? Their anniversary party six weeks ago? Did that count? When had his rebellious, damaging, insulting behavior been noticed?

Why hadn’t he said anything sooner?

That thought, he voiced aloud. Was he looking for the attention? Had he wanted him to say something? Confront him? Yell, scream? Cry? He was sure he had done plenty of crying and screaming. On his own, to whomever he went to confide in. Who knew? Where had he been sleeping the last week? He certainly wouldn’t have come to him, he bottled it up. That’s part of what landed them here.

They sucked at communication.

He was a selfish bastard.

There was something by the door, on the table where they’d kept their keys and the mail. It glinted in the low light of the afternoon. Gold.

Rings. Two gold bands, one with half a snowflake inside. They were both cold, stung his skin to touch. A ring of keys, two. One silver and plain, their - his- apartment key, and the heavier brass one for the complex. The key to the rink. And a letter, penned with ink by hand in his husband’s - did he have the right to call him that? - neat english scrawl. The one language they shared fluently.

The letter was written so well. It was to the point, dry and littered with jabs the same way he spoke when he was being sarcastic or upset. Nary a tear stain or warble of the ink on the page. His hands hadn’t shook while writing.

But his own did. They shook the more he read, when he read it a second and third time. And by time he laid it down and sunk to the hardwood floor, it had those tear stains. He’d smeared parts.

It was signed Katsuki.

He was left with an empty apartment, lacking any warmth. Without a husband or lover, he became like the ice everyone thought him of before. He felt cold.

Viktor Nikiforov was selfish. From the start he knew what he was. It was selfish of him to think he could have life and love. He wanted everything, the trite and true cake that he tried to gobble whole.

It was the least selfish thing he could do for his soon-to-be ex, when they saw each other in person months later to discuss the future, to let him go. It was what he was asking for and he was more than happy to let him have whatever he wanted.

Before they parted from the lawyer’s office in Fukuoka, he passed him his own letter.

 

_Dear Yuuri,_

_After everything, it seems like the biggest lie. But I love you. I still love you._

_Of course I made you unhappy. I cheated on you. With a kid who didn’t even care that I broke it off, who admitted he was looking for casual._

_I threw away my life and love because I was running away from our problems. And if I could do it over, I would have stopped his first advance and come home to you, to your arms and admitted, asked for therapy, for forgiveness. I’d have slept on the couch for months if it meant it never happened and we stayed together._

_But I made a mistake. I kept making mistakes until I became a selfish, gluttonous beast who wanted security in your presence and someone who didn’t care for the serious aspects of a relationship._

_It goes to show my immaturity and my selfish thoughts and actions._

_While we both failed to communicate, I took the trust from our marriage and made things worse. During our meetings, when you said you had wanted to start a family, a part of my soul died. My tears had been very real, despite anything the lawyers may have said. It made me happy to hear you were ready in your life and career and it made me incredibly sad I messed up enough that I won’t be a part of any family of yours any longer._

_Please look after Yura. He’s determined to win Worlds in three weeks, so he’s been begrudgingly listening to me but I leave him in your care come June. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to speak with your family directly, but also apologize to them as well. You aren’t the only one I’ve hurt._

_If there is anything you need that I can help with, please ask. I don’t have the right to ask this of you, but I think it’s the least I can do. I would rearrange the stars for you still and always will._

_I seem to be full of whimsical, selfish requests. But can I ask one more?_

_Continue to love yourself. You are worth it. You are worth the love of everyone around you, you are worth your own love._

_I’m extremely selfish. I took that love for granted and I was not enough for you. I am lacking, it’s no real fault of yours. You are enough._

 

_Still selfishly yours,_

_Viktor Nikiforov_

  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! You can direct your hatred and tomatoes for Viktor into the comments. Make sure you hit that kudos button and share on your social media and with your friends, too!
> 
> Check out my other Yuri on ice fics:  
> Inevitable  
> Love, Enough  
> Just a Distraction  
> The Fixation  
> Scales of Revenge  
> Sin From Thy Lips  
> ...and more!
> 
> Kudos, comments, and general love feed me more than food and if you want to chat, find me on tumblr as velvetcovered-brick!


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